LAS VEGAS -- Dr. Lucian Gheorghe, a senior innovation researcher at Nissan Motor Co., has publicly demonstrated his concept of a brain-to-vehicle interface that would allow drivers to feed their brain waves into the control center of a “B2V” compliant car, much as someone today might plug their phone into a dashboard.

If this sounds futuristic, well it is. Dr. Gheorghe, 40, who has a PhD in applied neural technology, says his B2V interface must be paired with an advanced form of vehicle autonomy that Nissan doesn’t expect to bring to market for at least five years. The research started in 2011, and a simulation of the technology was demonstrated this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where throngs of attendees could view it inside the company’s theater-like booth. Dr. Gheorghe says a working prototype exists at Nissan’s offices in Atsugi, Japan, where he is based and leads an international team of about 20 people.

The goal is to enhance the skill and performance of human drivers when a car is in manual mode, and improve the experience for the human when the car is in autonomous made. The idea to to help novice drivers become better drivers, and to provide skilled drivers with a higher level of performance from the car.

The system consists of a headset that looks something like over-the-head headphones, but is lined with sensors that measure the brain’s electrical potentials. “There is an algorithm that can understand the information, the brain waves. And then there is the automation in the vehicle,” he said.

“It is not reading minds. It is reading signatures of brain activity that correlate with movements,” Dr. Gheorghe said. “Before each intentional movement there is a signal that appears … called motion-related potential. And this appears more clearly the more intentional the movement. If you try to synchronize your movement with something external, like reading the beginning of a curve, this triggers a very clear signal that actually appears before the movement … up to two seconds before. They are very clear and we can decode them in a window of 500 milliseconds to 200 milliseconds before the movement itself.”

In manual mode, in that fraction of a second, the autonomous systems in the car should intervene to improve the execution of the human driver’s movement, according to Dr. Gheorghe. When the car is in autonomous mode, the system should gauge how humans are reacting to the driving experience and adjust self-driving capabilities.

“We should perpetuate driving pleasure in a world where cars can drive by themselves,” Dr. Gheorghe said. “It is a project that can prove the value of blending human intelligence with driving intelligence.”